


Big Girls Don't Cry

by katerina_sleeps



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Abortion, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 14:54:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2313551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katerina_sleeps/pseuds/katerina_sleeps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mandy had never had an abortion herself, but plenty of girls in her class had. She’d heard some horror stories about the pain, about pieces of the thing getting left behind, about someone who knew someone who knew someone else who’d died from an infection afterwards.The doctor was nice though, and told her how the whole thing would work. It didn't sound scary the way she explained it. </p>
<p>Mandy told herself she wasn't scared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Girls Don't Cry

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Shameless US Femslash Week Day 1: Firsts

They made $392 at the cookie fundraiser, mostly by telling everyone the cookies had hash in them. She scrounged up another $90 pushing some meth she found in her dad’s dresser, and Ian took care of the rest. Mandy didn't ask him what he normally would have used the money for. Groceries, probably. 

The fundraiser was on a Saturday. She called the nearest Planned Parenthood on Monday morning and scheduled an appointment for that Thursday. The three days in between passed slowly. She went to school for once, partly to avoid her dad and partly because Ian was there. He let her copy his history homework and passed her dumb notes during class, mostly just terrible drawings of their teachers that made her roll her eyes and laugh. It was pretty nice. 

She was fucking glad Lip had dropped out like a dumbass. If she ever saw him give her that look he’d had on his face the last time she’d seen him, he wouldn't be lucky enough to get another warning before she blew his brains out. 

After school she hung around with Ian at the Kash’n’Grab eating junk food and helping him stock shelves, since her idiot brother got himself arrested again. 

“Honestly, I’m surprised he managed to hold on to a normal job for so long,” she said on Tuesday as she passed cans of tomato soup up to Ian. “You’re a fucking saint for getting him hired, he must have been a bitch to work with.” 

Ian shrugged, shifting the cans so their labels were all facing outward. “He wasn't so bad,” he said. He hopped down from the ladder when the shelves were filled up. He gave her a funny look, opened his mouth and closed it a few times before shaking his head. He didn't meet her eyes as he carried the ladder passed her to the storage room. Mandy frowned and followed him. 

“What?” she said. 

“Huh?”

She punched his arm, lightly. “Don’t play dumb. What were you gonna say?"

He fiddled with his apron strings for a moment. “Did Mickey know about it? About...about your dad?”

Mandy snorted. “Are you kidding? He doesn't know shit, none of my brothers do. It’s none of their fucking business.” She narrowed her eyes at Ian. “And you’d better not say a fucking word, you hear me?”

“I know Mickey cares about you -” 

She stepped forward and poked him hard in the chest. “Not a word, Gallagher,” she said. “You say anything to anyone and I’ll rip your ginger balls off and shove them down your throat.”

Ian laughed a little at that, but his face was serious when he said, “I won’t tell. I promise.”

Mandy nodded and stepped back. “That goes for your asshole brother, too,” she said. 

He nodded and frowned. “Speaking of my asshole brother, you’re not planning on fucking him again, are you?” 

Mandy grinned and raised her eyebrows. “Wouldn't you like to know.”

Ian groaned. “I really, really wouldn't.” 

-

Ian was outside her house on Thursday morning.

“What are you doing here?” she said as she walked down the steps to the sidewalk. 

“You’re supposed to have someone with you to take you home after. I read it online.” He held out his arm. Mandy hesitated until he smiled at her. She smiled back and looped her arm through his as they walked to the El. 

The nerves she hadn't felt all week caught up with her as they got on the train. For the first time, she wished the seats had all been taken so she wouldn't have sit still. She cracked her knuckles until Ian grabbed her hand and laced their fingers together. 

“It’s gonna be fine,” he said. 

“I know. I just wish it was over.” 

The Planned Parenthood had just opened for the day so there weren't as many religious psychos with their baby-killer posters outside as usual, but the few people out front still tried to talk to her when she walked towards the entrance. She wanted to fucking punch each of them individually in the junk, but Ian put his arm around her shoulders and ignored them so she just leaned into him and kept quiet until they were through the doors. 

“Don’t those pricks have anything better to do with their fucking day?” she muttered as she signed in and paid at the front desk. 

“Nope,” Ian said. “They’re pathetic assholes who distract themselves from their sad, empty lives by trying to make everyone else in the world feel as shitty as they do.”

Mandy snorted as they sat down. She looked around. There were two other women in the waiting room. One of them was so far along she looked like the baby would drop any second. She was flipping through a magazine and Mandy saw a wedding band on her finger. The other girl looked younger than Mandy. She was bent over her cell phone and wouldn't stop tapping her foot. It was driving Mandy crazy so she turned to Ian.

“You think Barnett will give me a pass on my geometry homework if i tell her why I’m not in class?” she asked him. He chuckled.

“Give it a shot, I’d love to see the look on her face.” His eyes widened as he gasped dramatically, bringing his hand to his chest in mock horror. “How dare you, you sexual deviant!” he said in a ridiculous high-pitched voice.

Mandy laughed. “You’re such a moron,” she said. 

The receptionist called out a name and the pregnant woman stood up and waddled through a door at the other end of the room. Mandy crossed and uncrossed her legs. 

“If fucking Mickey wasn't in fucking juvie he’d do it for me,” she said.

“Do what?”

“My geometry homework.”

Ian raised his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

Mandy shrugged. “He’ll always do my math homework if I bribe him or just annoy him until he does it just to get me to shut up.”

“Why didn't he just show you how to do it yourself?” Ian asked. 

“He’s a shit teacher. He used to try to explain it when we were little but he couldn't really get the words out. He doesn't know how he knows how to do any of that shit, he just does it. The only reason he started flunking math classes was because teachers always thought he was cheating because he didn't show his work. They never believed he could do it all in his head.” 

Ian leaned back in his chair. “That’s shitty of them,” he said. 

“Well, we go to a shitty school.” 

None of her teachers thought she knew how to do anything either. She’d done alright her freshman year, and the first semester of sophomore year too, but then her dad got out of prison and it was back to the family business. She stayed home from school to take guns apart, clean them, file off their registration numbers and put them back together. She made trips with whichever brother wasn't in jail to drugstores in neighboring towns to get sudo, from Evanston to Elgin to Wheaton and every shitty town in between, until the backseat was piled with bags full of the stuff. She cut coke with baking soda and measured out grams on the kitchen table. When she did go to school, she copied Ian’s homework before class and punched him in the shoulder whenever he fucked up on his prepositions. 

The pregnant woman walked back into the waiting room and out to the parking lot. The girl with the phone and the foot-tapping disappeared behind the door. Mandy slouched down in her chair and blew her bangs out of her eyes. Ian played with her hair, pushed her bangs back trying to get them to stick up until she swatted his hand away, laughing. 

He wasn't always her only friend. 

She’d never really had friends before high school. The other kids made fun of her as soon as they found out her last name, and she’d learned two things growing up in Terry’s house: that the Milkovich name was sacred, and how to fight dirty. The kids stopped teasing her after she broke Connor McCoy’s nose with his pencil box; in fact, they pretty much stopped looking at her. She didn't care that much. She never would have been able to invite anyone from school over anyway, even if she wanted to, in case her dad was kicking the shit out of one of her brothers or her mom was shooting up in front of the TV. But then her mom died and her dad went away for four years soon after, the longest sentence he’d had as far as she could remember. High school was full of complete strangers, and even though her brothers had already given the Milkovich name a bit of a reputation, there were so many students around that it barely touched her at first. 

Girls were easier to get along with than she’d always thought. They went to the mall in big, giggling groups, shoplifting makeup and slurping smoothies from Orange Julius. They talked about the boys they liked, the boys that didn't have a chance in hell but still followed them around like puppies, they whined about their asshole parents and embarrassing siblings. As long as no one hooked up with anyone else’s boyfriend, they had a great time. But then her dad came home and in less than a week he was touching her again, more than he ever had before. She’d grown a lot since he’d been locked up, sprouted tits and started her period, and he was eager to sample the goods. It wasn't the first time she’d had sex, but it was the first time she’d puked after. Two days later, when Stacey Troutman was bitching about how her dad was insisting on taking her and her sister to Six Flags that weekend even though “they were way too old for dumb theme parks,” Mandy punched her twice in the face and got suspended for it. None of the girls would speak to her after that, except to call her a slut or a psycho when they passed each other in the hallways, but she had Ian by then and he was a better friend than all of them combined. 

“Mandy Milkovich?”

She started at the sound of her name; Mandy hadn't noticed the door open. She felt a weird lurch in her stomach and she clenched her fists around her suddenly sweaty palms. Ian took her hand and they stood up. The nurse stopped them at the door. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, “only the patient is allowed to come through here. Safety protocol.” Ian and Mandy glanced at each other before Mandy turned to glare at the nurse, but she wouldn't budge. Ian squeezed her hand before letting it go. 

“You okay?” he asked her. She nodded and took a deep breath. Ian smiled and tugged gently at a lock of her hair. “I’ll be out here when you’re done.” She tried to smile back but it didn't really work. 

She followed the nurse down a hallway and into an office where a woman in a white lab coat was sitting behind a desk. “Can we get this over with?” she said. 

“I just have to take your vitals and ask you a few questions before we get started,” she said, gesturing to a chair in front of the desk. Mandy took a deep breath and sat down. 

“Have you ever had an abortion before?” the doctor asked.

“Nope,” Mandy said. “First time.”

-

Mandy had never had an abortion herself, but plenty of girls in her class had. She’d heard some horror stories about the pain, about pieces of the thing getting left behind, about someone who knew someone who knew someone else who’d died from an infection afterwards. The doctor was nice though, and told her how the whole thing would work. It didn't sound scary the way she explained it. 

Mandy told herself she wasn't scared. 

It didn't hurt that much. A sharp pinch, some cramping, a weird sort of pressure low in her abdomen, and it was done. She stared at the clock as she put her clothes back on; the whole thing had taken six minutes. A nurse led her to another room with several couches and handed her a heating pad and two aspirin. She swallowed them dry before the nurse had a chance to get her some water. 

“Can my boyfriend wait with me?” she asked. The nurse nodded and went to go get him. 

Mandy leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes until Ian came in and sat down next to her. 

“Hey,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

Mandy smiled. “Fucking relieved,” she said. Ian grinned back. 

“It was quicker than I was expecting. Does it hurt at all?” he said

She shrugged. “Not really. I've had period cramps worse than this.” 

“That’s good. Remember when Shawna Gibbons got an abortion? She was out of school for like a week because it hurt so much.”

“Shawna Gibbons is pathetic. She’d call an ambulance over a splinter.” 

Ian laughed. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah.” Mandy sighed and closed her eyes again. She felt Ian put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him. He was solid and warm and smelled like laundry detergent and for a moment, Mandy was absurdly happy. 

When the nurse finally let them leave there was a taxi waiting outside. Mandy tried to argue, but Ian insisted and she was honestly too tired to walk to the El anyway. She fell asleep on Ian’s shoulder after a few minutes; when she woke up he was carrying her up the steps of her house. 

“You don’t have to,” she mumbled into his chest, even though she couldn't imagine walking more than two steps right then. Either he didn't hear or he knew she was full of shit because he ignored her and carried her all the way to her bed. She stared out the window while he pulled off her shoes and helped her with her jacket. When he started to pull the blankets over her she rolled her eyes and yanked them out of his hands. 

“I’m a big girl, you don’t have to tuck me in,” she said. Ian grinned. 

“You sure?” he said. “I could tell you a bedtime story and everything.” 

Mandy snorted. “Thanks but no thanks. I’m about to pass out anyway,” she said. “You should go home.” 

Ian was already pulling off his coat. “I can stay for a bit.” 

-

When Mandy woke up the window was dark. Her mouth felt fuzzy and she ached all over. She groaned and rolled over. She froze when she bumped into something warm.

_Not tonight, not tonight, fuck, not tonight, the fucking doctor said I can’t have anything up there for at least a week, goddammit dad, are you trying to kill me-_

“You awake?” 

It was Ian. 

Mandy didn't even realize she was crying until Ian wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to his chest. She could barely breathe she was crying so hard. She clutched at his back to try to stop her body’s shaking while he stroked her hair. 

“You’re okay,” he whispered. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re okay.” 

-

The last time she’d cried was at her mom's wake. The house had been packed with people, family members supposedly, but she hadn't known anyone. They were all so much bigger than her, the air was so full of cigarette smoke she could barely see, and when a man picked her up, one of her uncles maybe, she started screaming. She screamed and screamed until he finally put her down, nearly dropping her, but she couldn't stop. There were so many people she didn't even know where she was, so she just kept screaming. And then Mickey was there, grabbing her hand and leading her through the endless crowd, down the hallway and into her bedroom. He’d slammed the door behind them and shoved a chair under the knob. They stayed there for the rest of the night, backs to the wall underneath her window, Mickey holding her hand while she cried. He’d kept holding it even after she stopped. 

“You can’t cry anymore Mandy,” he’d said once she’d gone quiet. “Dad doesn't like it when we cry.” 

She’d sniffed one last time and nodded. 

“Okay.”


End file.
